The Afghan Billy the Kid

Sunday 26 February 2012

The Afghan Billy the Kid

It sounds like something out of a western. A desperado steals quietly into a heavily-guarded area, shoots dead two rapscallions, and gets away clean. This apparently is what happened at the Afghan Interior Ministry Saturday in Kabul.

Not only is the compound around the building heavily guarded in and of its own right, but according to the New York Times, the killings occurred in “one of the most tightly secured areas of the ministry”—a command and control center from which officials apparently are able to monitor conditions throughout the entire country.

How well planned the operation was remains to be seen, but it sounds pretty audacious.

At first the two dead were described only as “American advisers,” however, the Times reports they were US officers, while a story from Reuters identifies one as a US colonel and the other as a “major with NATO forces.”

“There is CCTV there and special locks. The killer would have had to have the highest security (clearance) to get to the room where they were killed,” an Afghan source told Reuters.

The two men were apparently shot in the back of the head. The Taliban have claimed responsibility, and say the daring raid was in response to the recent Qur’an burnings. But how did they pull it off? How did the attacker infiltrate such a heavily-guarded building? A report in the Toronto Globe and Mail perhaps gives us a clue:

In a statement, Taliban spokesman Zabiullah Mujahid said the gunman was an insurgent named Abdul Rahman. He said an accomplice inside the ministry helped him get inside the compound. He said the killings were a planned response to the Qur'an burnings.

“After the attack, Rahman informed us by telephone that he was able to kill four high-ranking American advisers,” Mujahid said. The Taliban frequently exaggerate casualty claims.

The notion that Taliban statements are any less reliable than those issued by the Pentagon is a dubious concept at best, but of course this is the assumption under which mainstream media always operate. But as all the reports note, the attack came on the fifth day of protests which have rocked the country, and whether “Abdul Rahman” is the assailants real name—or simply an alias—all the mainstream media agree on one other point as well: the bastard got away.

In the view of the New York Times, the killings “add to the drumbeat of concern” about increased anger among Afghan civilians. That anger of course is understandable. And it isn’t just the burning of Qur’ans. A horrendous toll has been exacted by the past decade of war and occupation. If such an occupation were taking place on American soil, would not Americans have undertaken similar acts against their occupiers? Yet in the view of Gen. John Allen, US-NATO commander in Afghanistan, the man who penetrated the Interior Ministry is a “coward.”

“The perpetrator of this attack is a coward whose actions will not go unanswered,” Allen said in a statement released to the media.

Wrong, General. The cowards are the men and women in your army who sit at control panels, push buttons, and kill people thousands of miles away. The man who carried out this attack would have known that if captured he would face certain torture and death. Whatever else he may be—a freedom fighter or a murderer—he is not a coward.

This past Thursday, Obama issued a shallow, half-hearted apology in response to the Qur’an burnings. I call it shallow and half-hearted because that’s what it is. While Americans have possibly forgotten that guards at Guantanamo routinely taunted prisoners by flushing Qur’ans down toilets, the people of Afghanistan doubtless remember this. They also are likely to remember the video which surfaced only recently showing US soldiers urinating on Taliban corpses. Indeed, it is fresh in their minds and no doubt adding to the momentum of the protests. Now again—imagine if the situation were reversed and it were Muslims urinating on the bodies of US soldiers.

Little has been said regarding the details of the Qur’an burnings. We are told on the one hand that it was a “mistake” and on the other that the incident is being “investigated.” What of course should be clear by now, even to the most ardent Fox News watchers sitting with their beer cans in front of their TV sets, is that we are not wanted in Afghanistan, not even by the Afghan police and army whom we presumably are training to “secure” the country. (Secure it from what? one wonders.)

In the wake of the killings, NATO responded by pulling all military advisers out of Afghan ministries in Kabul, but this is the wrong response. The correct response would be to pull all military forces out of Afghanistan completely. And Pakistan. And Iraq. And Libya. With millions of Americans out of work and living in the streets, what possible justification can there be for continuing these wars? There is none.